Rid Of Me
by eosdawnaurora
Summary: In recovery, Momo has to find her own reasons to keep living. Prompt - blindfolds. For Springkink. Bleach is Kubo's.


It took months of highly-supervised care, but from her hospital bed and under the ministrations of Captain Unohana, Momo Hinamori slowly regained her health. What took much longer was defining her sense of herself as separate from_ him_. The captain of the Fourth Division told her in no uncertain terms, that if she wanted to fully recover, she had to accept this new reality. The one where she had a scar on her breast; the one where he shattered all that she was and smiled.

What initially gave her the will to survive was a tiny sliver of hope that there was some other explanation. Behind that, like a great black billowing cloud was the loathsome voice which told her that there was no such thing.

Sosuke Aizen had finished with her, and after he had constructed such a vibrant and wondrous illusion and torn it down before her eyes, she began to suspect he was right. Life without that person she had known, idolized, worshiped, believed in like he were some kind of god among shinigami, this life felt completely empty and dark, full of fools and traitors. She being the worst of them. It was not worth living in a world like this one. She missed that person who never was, missed the sense of safety he had allowed her.

_Sosuke._

His name should have been bitter on her tongue, but in thinking it in saying it, she could only hear his velvety, beautiful voice saying her name in response. These were the things that were hardest to let go of, these little, tiny things that she knew were real. His voice. His name. His consistent scent of mingled ink and paper, of fragrant wood and beeswax. The things she couldn't have made up in her own mind, the things that regardless of his manipulation of her senses, she simply knew signified him. She missed these things, too.

While confined to her room and propped up on pillows, she sometimes took visitors. Abarai and Toshiro stopped by when they could. Miss Matsumoto and Kira always stayed the longest. Momo usually wore a pink cotton robe embroidered with peach blossoms, which was a gift from Kira.

Kira was hurting in his own way she knew. She wasn't the only one who had been betrayed, wounded deep in her heart. Wearing his gift was a small victory. If she could acknowledge that Kira was not the enemy, that he did what he did only because he was being played for a fool too, she could displace a small portion of her shame. She could also acknowledge that she existed outside of_ him_.

_Sosuke, why?_

A few of her visitors also included certain members of Fourth Division, who were former Second Division operatives. They knew the right questions to ask and how to ask them when her mind was still bent around and broken. Vice-captain Kotetsu never let them push her too far, but slowly they built a ladder into her psyche. Not only did they get what answers they wanted, but helped her climb back out of the pit of betrayal and deception and worst of all, her iron-clad delusions. Unless he was standing right in front of her they said, he only had what power she gave him.

Perhaps one of the worst delusions, the worst pains, completely aside from the physical, was that she truly had believed he loved her. Which was what he wanted her to believe, what he needed her to believe. He was so convincing, she wondered if he decided he had to kill her only because he'd momentarily convinced himself, too. If he killed her he could fully be rid of that other self, and all the emotional baggage which went with it. He could excise anything of her inside of him.

This was naive though, a claim on understanding him and she knew she never would. It helped to know that the real Sosuke Aizen was just as pathetic as Momo Hinamori in his own way. To have to go to such lengths not to love her, to hurt everyone around him for something so mad.

Momo knew now through all that time, that was something he _did_ want, of all things. To be understood. Perhaps even for someone to call him out for what he was - a cold-hearted schemer, an effortless liar, a power-hungry sadist; for someone to challenge him at his own game. He'd given her multiple opportunities, knowing she was a fool for him, and only now could she recognize them for what they were. Openings in his armor, so wide that a hundred swords could have stabbed through. She stubbornly chose to see only what she wanted to see however, and he took advantage wherever he could. Full advantage.

_Oh, Sosuke._

That she had allowed herself to be beguiled, to have become his lover even for a short time, didn't disgust her perhaps as much as it should have. She was his subordinate, and while what they had been doing was against the rules, it was also generally accepted to be something that if not flaunted, could be ignored with little to no remonstrance. What disturbed her though, was that the kind, thoughtful man she thought she made love to, was not the man she was actually with.

Her experience with men and lovemaking was limited, but she never thought her captain selfish or abusive towards her when they were intimate. He never told her that he loved her, and she'd never asked him to. It was easy enough to get caught up the moment and not think about what was never said.

At least she could finally make sense of the blindfolds. In those few times that he took her to his bed, he asked that they wear them. Momo hadn't protested much, she trusted him, always assumed he knew best; she wanted so badly to please him and to receive his affection. By the time he left Seireitei for good, she knew she had touched nearly every inch of his skin, worshiped his body every way she knew how, every way that he wanted her to except with her gaze.

She could only wonder now what was so terrific about her seeing him exposed, that he required such a thing. Perhaps he merely found it erotic. Deprivation of a sense which he could manipulate so easily, forcing them both to rely completely on what remained must have been immensely attractive. Or perhaps – though she knew she should doubt this - he was actually afraid of becoming attached to her. Maybe she even reminded him of someone else. She would never know.

In those scattered moments when she could almost still feel his hands on her, his body over her, in darkness absolute, she didn't want to think about his reasons. It came to her that it was better to think that Sosuke Aizen really was dead, and this other person had stolen his face and his name. Momo could hold on to that, such an idea was bearable.

It also meant that this impostor had to be destroyed, and she was going to help kill him.

_Goodbye, Sosuke._


End file.
